Anchor text is the visible clickable wording of a link, helping people and crawlers understand the linked page’s likely subject and relationship.
Anchor text in context
Anchor text is the visible, clickable wording inside a link. Its job is primarily navigational: a reader should be able to predict what the destination offers before choosing it. For crawlers, a normal HTML <a href> link with descriptive surrounding text also gives useful context about the destination. Google’s documentation asks site owners to make links crawlable and use concise, relevant anchor text rather than vague labels such as “click here.”
Optimisation therefore means making the promise accurate, not selecting a percentage of keyword-rich anchors. The same destination can justifiably receive different anchors because each source sentence frames a different benefit. A guide may link to a glossary page as “what a canonical tag means,” while a technical checklist links to it as “canonical-target checks.” Both are clearer than forcing one repeated phrase everywhere.
Internal and external anchors
Internal links are directly controllable. Prioritise anchors in body content, breadcrumbs and purposeful related-page modules because they express a real relationship. Repeated global navigation anchors are useful for navigation but provide little editorial specificity; they should not be multiplied merely to change a count. External anchors belong to other publishers. A site can suggest a resource, but cannot responsibly prescribe their wording.
| Link situation | Useful anchor decision | Check |
|---|---|---|
| In-body explanation | Name the destination's question or asset | The linked page answers that promise |
| Generic button | Add visible context next to the button | A reader still knows where it goes |
| Repeated navigation item | Keep a stable label | Do not duplicate it across templates for a keyword |
| External mention | Offer a relevant resource, not required wording | Publisher retains editorial control |
Anchor text also has an accessibility role. A screen-reader user may navigate through a list of links without the surrounding paragraph. “Read the redirect migration checklist” is intelligible alone; “read more” is not. Image links need equivalent text through alt text or an accessible name, while decorative linked graphics need a deliberate label elsewhere.
Review a real link set
Start with one destination URL, not a sitewide word count. Export its incoming internal links with source URL, raw anchor, surrounding sentence and whether the link appears in body content or a template. Normalise redirects first: an anchor pointing to a redirect is a routing defect before it is an anchor-text question. Then open a sample of sources and ask whether a user who reads only the anchor and nearby sentence would expect the destination.
- Choose a destination page with an unambiguous purpose, such as a glossary definition or a setup guide.
- List all internal inlinks and separate editorial links from repeated menus, footers and breadcrumbs.
- Flag empty anchors, filename anchors, generic labels without context, and anchors that promise a different topic.
- Edit only the links whose wording harms comprehension; preserve valid variation.
- Crawl the published HTML again to confirm direct 200-level canonical destinations and readable anchors.
A concrete example: an article sentence says “Check whether the preferred URL is indexable.” Linking “preferred URL” to a canonical glossary definition is specific enough if the destination explains canonical selection. Linking the same words to a broad homepage is misleading even if the phrase contains a target keyword.
Mistakes to avoid
Exact-match repetition is the familiar mistake. It turns navigation into awkward copy and treats a phrase as a ranking control detached from meaning. Another mistake is repairing anchors in a raw export without checking templates, language variants or redirect destinations. The verifiable success condition is modest: links are crawlable, the destination is direct and canonical, and the wording gives a person an accurate reason to follow it.